A Place to Stand

Comments from Scotland on politics, technology & all related matters (ie everything)/"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."Henry Louis Mencken....WARNING - THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS HAVE DECIDED THAT THIS BLOG IS LIKELY TO BE MISTAKEN FOR AN OFFICIAL PARTY SITE (no really, unanimous decision) I PROMISE IT ISN'T SO ENTER FREELY & OF YOUR OWN WILL

Saturday, July 06, 2013

"Next Time It Will Be Petrol" - What Salmond & The Yes Campaign Fascists Promise

This article is by Mike Haseler, UKIP Scotland's Energy Spokesman and bearing in mind that the fascist anti-UKIP riot has still not been condemned by our First Minister and the Radical Independence/SWP fascist remain a welcomed part of the Yes campaign it is worth repeating what "Yes" are so enthusiastic about.

People who combine fascism with hypocrisy but not with the competence to make trains run on time.

they certainly crossed the line when after throwing brown liquid over me and Mike Scott-Hayward (UKIP Scotland Chairman) someone said: "next time it will be petrol".
&As for the protest, it was a surreal mixture of the comic and the deadly serious. There was the point the protesters unveiled a huge banner ... facing the wall so that no one could see it ... then they tried to move away onto the road and I was very pleased the police were present because there was a serious risk they would get run over. There are a number of other unrelated but interesting articles on the site. Will add to my blogroll next time I'm updating.

Friday, July 05, 2013

What Is Britain's Greatest Achievement Of The Last 50 Years - What It Could Be In The Next

In 1999 ...when asked to name America’s greatest achievement of the 20th century, the specific accomplishment cited most frequently — at 18% — was space exploration or the moon mission. Overall, 47% cited any achievement in science, medicine or technology, including space.
But in May of this year, when the public was asked to name the greatest U.S. accomplishment of the past 50 years, somewhat fewer (12%) specifically mentioned space exploration or getting a man to the moon as the greatest achievement. Only about a quarter (27%) mentioned an achievement in science, medicine or technology. (For more from this survey, see “Public Praises Scientists; Scientists Fault Public, Media,” July 9, 2009.)

In the new survey, [2009] nearly as many people point to the election of a black president (10%) as cite the space program as the greatest U.S. accomplishment of the past half-century. In addition, a third (33%) offer no response — or say “nothing” when asked about the top national achievement — compared with 24% in the 1999 survey.

Not surprising that an event 40 years earlier, when most of the population was unborn, would slip a bit with time. My guess is that 34 years from now electing an incompetent because he was a half black brought up by whites, is not going to be seen as a proud achievement - call it a hunch.

In fact what is clear is that the fading of Apollo (6% down but still the greatest single achievement) has not been accompanied by an increase in respect for new achievements but by respect for nothing (13% up).

Which suggests that space exploration, back when the USA was doing it was very well worth it. The original Apollo programme cost $170 billion in 2005 prices which is a little over 1% of current GDP for 1 year. Nothing compared to total government pending.

"To love one's country it should be lovable." Partly because we have had decades of "we shouldn't spend money in space as long as there are still problems here" I have repeatedly said that state support, through X-Prizes, of the development of space, far from costing money, opens the door to wealth beyond anything seen heretofore. All those arguments hold entirely true.

However I have tended to ignore the cultural benefits. Anything which makes people proud of their culture and society and which tends to unite us is desirable. The importance of a society holding common feeling can hardly be underestimated. as Steve Sailer explains:

A rare contribution of the Muslim world to intellectual life was made by the Tunisian philosopher Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century. He developed a theory of the rise and decline of group loyalty. An impoverished tribe out on the fringe of the Sahara would develop an esprit de corps allowing it to conquer the coast’s rich but decadent civilization. Over a few generations of soft living, the new ruling clans would lose their asabiyyah and turn to scheming against each other for petty advantages, only to be conquered by a cohesive new tribe out of the wasteland.

A deliberate space programme (at about 30% of the cost of Apollo if funded through X-Prizes) (£11 billion a year over 10 years) should achieve an effect proportional to Apollo (that now probably means commercial space shuttles, orbital industry, Moon settlements, solar power satellites and Martian & asteroidal exploration and mining) would not only make us extremely wealthy but also give everybody reason for great national pride and therefore national unity. (No downside here since if the targets weren't achieved, by definition, the prizes wouldn't be won.)

We are clearly in need of some reasons for British national pride - the contempt the vast majority feel for our government is tangible. Such pride cannot be obtained simply by spending money. Despite the opening of the Olympics it clearly cannot be obtained simply by having a national health service and welfare state (though I do think a welfare cushion does help whatever the pure free market arguments against it). The traditional way of ramping up national unity and pride is going to war (still being used as our roles in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria prove) but not only is that a risky option it is over time, a distasteful and destructive one.

there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature

For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: no man loves her; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due.

But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night (Nyx), and the son of Cronus who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with his neighbour as he hurries after wealth.

It would be in our national interest to put a bit of effort into expanding the human horizon beyond Earth rather than to put the current, far greater, effort into international wars, class wars and the Luddite war on fire.

Thursday, July 04, 2013

Edinburgh Trams - Not Quite As Popular And Financially Viable As Promised

We were once told that once all the money was poured into the Edinburgh trams and they were up and running they would be successful. Who would have guessed that promise was false too:

Edinburgh's trams will run at an
operating loss over the next 15 years, according to the council's first full
financial projections for the scheme.

The £776m project is due to begin running in July next year.A report to councillors said the trams would need an initial start-up loan of
up to £3m.The council expects to receive £51m in payments and dividends over 15 years.
However, it will pay out £85m in maintenance and refurbishment costs.Lothian Buses is expected to generate a £33m dividend for the council over
the same period.However, when the costs of the tram scheme are included, the profit drops to
£5m......Professor Richard Kerley, Queen Margaret University's local government
finance expert, said: "I am slightly surprised that the projected figures for
cash transfers and dividends are so firm when you don't have tram lines up and
running yet." It was originally intended that the trams would run from Edinburgh Airport to
Newhaven in the north, at a cost of £545m.They will now terminate in York Place in the city centre, with the project
costing £776m.

Note sleight of hand comparing £51m takings with £85m "maintenance and refurbishment" but that ignores the actual cost of day to day running, ticket collection etc. Also the "initial start up loan of £3 million" - what do you call a loan that nobody expects will ever be repaid?

Officially the building cost has not been upped for the last couple of years and is still £776 million but that excludes interest payments which are agreed to bring it over the billion.

And of course, as Professor Kerley points out this figure is subject to "unforeseen" extra expenses when the system is actually up. With the building cost well over £1bn for half the original track (originally promised at £300 million it is clear that we are still a long way from knowing where the bottom of this money hole lies.

And Edinburgh city centre is still gridlocked because major roads are endlessly closed to put in/take out/move/repair rails.

And Edinburgh has gone from being the second favourite tourist city in Britain to not being in the top ten.

If you can't quit when you are ahead quitting when you are merely £1 billion behind still makes sense. All Holyrood parties (admittedly the SNP less than the others) share the blame. In the spirit of learning from ones mistakes so that one can repeat them perfectly, all of the old parties are in favour of spending £34 billion now £45 billion on HS2 though UKIP are opposed to that one too.

Chilean 10 MW Thorium Desalination PlantThey are planning a 10 MW thorium reactor located in Copiapó, Chile consists of a core and reactor manufactured by DBI Operating Company in California. The balance of plant, including all buildings and required infrastructure will be constructed on site.....Indonesian 25 MW Thorium Power ProjectThorium Power Canada is presently preparing a proposal for the development of a 25 MW thorium reactor in Indonesia. This demonstration power project will provide electrical power to the country’s power grid.Indonesia could install a reactor on the island of Kalimantan in as soon as two years, Kerr said. The reactor would either connect to the grid in the rapidly expanding country, or power a water desalination plant.

The $2 million per MW quoted is marginally higher than the $1.2-1.8 bn for the Westinghouse AP1000 1GW but that is probably a diseconomy of scale - "design can achieve any output desired" certainly suggests much of the cost would be flat for larger outputs.

Thorium is considered to be inherently safer because being non-explosive, unlike uranium, passive safety systems are feasible. There is also 4 times as much thorium in the world as uranium.

But the real killer is the timescale. 18 months to 2 years (previously the minimum has been 3 years in China or 10 in Europe) makes it nearly as fast as building new gas generators. Even with all the decades wasted we could still, possibly, prevent blackouts. I did previously discuss reactors with an 18 month build time but this time we actually have something already being contracted for.

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

2 1/ Letters - Metro on Dalgety Bay and Mail & Herald on Shale

The Metro letter was in yesterday, highlighted. It was not signed as UKIP because the party has not yet, as far as I know, made a public statement on this. The original letter shown in full was considerably edited but this is unsurprising since it was long and complicated and a sufficiently remote subject I did not really expect them to use it. I found their editing to be sensible Once again I would like to commend the Metro as a paper that transcends its free paper format, for example its centre pages on Monday contained another science article by Ben Gilland on quantum physics, with drawings of the 2 slit experiment, which would have been too intellectual for Guardian readers (they only did PPE & classics before running the civil service).

Once again SEPA sitting as judge and jury on their own claim to have found radium at Dalgety Bay have repeated the claim, though it is noticeable that they are highlighting the existence of clinker there (which nobody ever denied and is not quite the same as allegedly dangerous radioactivity) rather than the alleged radium.

The fact is that internal documents released under the freedom of Information Act have shown that SEPA have always known that not only is there no radiation risk whatsoever but that local radiation levels are "less than 2/3rds those of any Aberdeen street".

Moreover despite having publicly claimed to have found radium particles chemically shown to be paint in fact they have never found any proven radium at all, let alone bonded into paint.

This is hardly surprising for 2 reasons. The original paint was water soluble and thus would hardly be likely to be found bonded to anything 63 years later even had in been in the middle of the Sahara. It rains more often in Scotland. Secondly the total amount of radium there, which existed only as a small part of the paint on the numbers on a few dials simply could not have consisted, even back then, of more than 1/4 of a gram. For comparison every square mile of soil contains I gram of radium, produced as a by-product of the existence of 9 tons of radioactive uranium and thorium. 1/4 gram spread over a mile could neither be detected nor have any effect. SEPA would be better employed writing reports about the possibility of fairies at the bottom of gardens - at least this would not inflict planning blight on perfectly healthy communities.

In fact the entire scare about low levels of radiation being dangerous has always been bureaucratic empire building. It does not and never has had any scientific basis whatsoever. Indeed low levels of radiation have, since long before the atomic age, been demonstrated to improve plant and microbe growth in the laboratory. The process is well known and is called hormesis. Experimental evidence, on either side, is obviously more difficult to obtain with humans but even there is overwhelming statistical evidence that health is better in areas where radiation levels have always been naturally higher.

Of course promoting this false scare provides gainful employment to a large number of SEPA bureaucrats but unfortunately for them that does not make it true and no reputable scientist nowadays claims this scare as scientifically based."

This letter went out to all and sundry but, as far as I know, was only published by the Metro. That makes the Mail and Metro only papers ever to have been willing to publish anything sceptical about the LNT radiation scare.

The second letter was in the Herald on Saturday and Mail today. This was signed as a UKIP representative and, somewhat to my surprise, both papers have kept that in. I am particularly surprised at the herald doing this since they have declined to publish UKIPers letters even in response to letters by Alex Orr (publicly funded PR man) attacking us.

We are now told that Britain has 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, one of the biggest reserves in the world. Scotland may, since we have a far smaller population density have the same per capita share. The discovery of shale obviously threatens the peak oil scare, prophesied annually for the last 50 years, which in turn means the oil price is likely to fall substantially. With North Sea oil particularly expensive to extract a fall in the price would be ruinous. It seems probable that the rest of the UK could very shortly (most of the US gas came online in an 18month period) have a "gas boom" just as "Scotland's oil" becomes unprofitable.

Yet what is the SNP government's reaction? They are doing everything in their power to prevent development of this new energy industry in Scotland in case it interferes with their plans to become the "Saudi Arabia" of subsidy dependent windmills.

Will the SNP be sufficiently lacking in hypocrisy to say that the gas is "England's gas" and that (assuming the SNP succeed in preventing exploitation here) Scotland should have no part of the revenues?

The one thing we can be certain of is that if today's anti-technology SNP had been in charge when North Sea Oil was first discovered they would have made sure none of it had been developed.

Both have published largely unedited. Strangely the Herald has a letter apparently disputing what I and others wrote but, insofar as it refers to me it simply reprints what I said with no actual argument. Persuasive eh?

Monday, July 01, 2013

See The Last Nano-Seconds Of The Big Bang

If you are a fan of The Big Bang Theory (on at least 4 times a day on E4 so clearly a lot of people are) like me you may like this link to the notes writer Chuck Lorre writes which are shown for a fraction of a second with the credits.

I'm the sort of person who interrupts Sheldon to correct him on minutia and objects that the opening song clearly tells us that the bang happened "13 million years ago" rather than 13 billion (which I suspect American creationists will find even less plausible)

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Richard III & The Murder of the Princes in the Tower - Shakespeare & The Decay of Bodies

KING:

Where is Polonius?(35)

KING:

Where is Polonius?

HAMLET:

In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messengerfind him not there, seek him i' the other place
yourself. Butindeed, if you find him not within
this month, you shallnose him as you go up the
stair, into the lobby.

HAMLET:

In heaven. Send there to see. If your messenger can’t
find him there,
look for him in the other place yourself.
But, indeed, if you don’t find him
within this month, you
will smell him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

KING:

Go seek him there.(

This is from Shakespeare and is Hamlet's unlovely way of telling King Claudius that he has killed his chief Minister, Polonius, and where he put the body.

Incidentally Claudius proceeds to keep the murder quiet and as a result Polonius' son Laertes leads a popular rebellion against him. Clearly kings who try to maintain the appearance of peace by hiding their enemies' activities run the risk of being blamed. Shakespeare's choice of the foot of the stairs as a burial site may well be coincidental. It was a common place in medieval times to bury waste since the area behind the bottom of stairs serves no other useful purpose.

This article is about Richard III and the murder of the Princes in the Tower.

In particular the discovery in 1674, of 2 bodies in a trunk in rubble at the foot of the stairs to the Royal Chapel in the Tower of London. In the 1920s a serious examination of the bodies was made and it and subsequent opinion based on the photographs taken at the time largely agree that it was 2 related bodies of the correct age group at the time the children were last seen. And that they show signs of being related to Anne Warwick whose corpse has also been examined. If all of that is correct the bodies can only be those of the Princes.

It also fits with Sir Thomas More's history of the period which says the bodies were buried at the foot of stairs.

But this leaves 2 problems.

That Henry VII is said to have initiated a search for the bodies and didn't find them - despite More's history being based on information from Henry's court, friends and indeed Henry himself. If the court knew that precisely where the bodies were they would have found them. Alternately if Henry was lying and he had the bodies already he could have had them buried there specifically to back up his story, but that works only if he already has the bodies elsewhere.

And the one raised by Shakespeare - that the presence of 2 bodies, buried indoors in the Tower would have been quite unmistakable for months and perhaps years.

Which means the bodies were planted there some considerable time after their deaths. That means in the reign of Henry VII (possibly at the time of the conviction and alleged confession of Sir James Tyler or later). There is no other actual evidence for the confession and Tyler was not executed for killing them but on an unrelated matter, let alone convicted. But from the ages of the bodies they were clearly killed in the time of Richard III. Incidentally Tyler had a remarkably as an ex-Yorkist, successful career working, outside the country, for Henry after he came to power (as well, less remarkably, for Richard before)..

Extraordinarily there is one suspect connected to both Richard and Henry whom both would have been embarrassed to be connected to.

The Duke of Buckingham.

Buckingham and Richard, then Duke of Gloucester, had been responsible for seizing the Princes from the Woodville family and Buckingham had been, at least publicly, the motivator of them then being declared illegitimate and Richard thus succeeding to the kingship. They were very much partners.

Then suddenly Buckingham rose in rebellion against him, publicly in favour of Henry Tudor. Why?

Buckingham was already the 2nd person in the kingdom - what could Henry possibly offer him that would be better than that? The reason often given by historians to say that Richard had reneged on a promise to give Buckingham the Bohun estate but records show that, until his rebellion, Richard was still going through the process of giving him the title right up until Buckingham publicly rebelled. In fact the only reason to suggest Richard was not giving him the estate is that Buckingham rebelled which appears to be reversing the normal laws of cause and effect.

Also Buckingham was listening to Henry's intelligence chief, Bishop Morton, who was his prisoner and to Margaret Beaufort who was Henry's mother, but Buckingham was no wind up doll for them to so easily reprogramme.

Here is my suggestion that seems to fit the facts better than assuming Richard did it (in which case the "buried" bodies would not have gone undetected, or that Henry did it after capturing the Tower (in which case the bodies would have been older than they were at death).

After Richard had been crowned Buckingham suggested to Richard that it was politically necessary to get rid of the princes. So long as they lived they would retain a claim to the throne. However they were Richard's half nephews (it is now as certain as can be that their father, Edward the IV was not his father's son but was still his mother's) and he may have balked at this. They were not Buckingham's close relation and he would have found it easier to recognise the necessity. So when Richard went on his tour of the country Buckingham arranged for Tyrel to enter the Tower. In theory he did not have this right but he was known to be both the king's right hand man and the 1st noble of the land so it need not have been a problem.

Buckingham might have killed them and removed the bodies, expecting Richard to accept it, even be grateful, for the fait accompli (in the way the killers of Thomas Beckett expected after hearing the king say "who will rid me of this turbulent priest, expected Henry II to be grateful without knowing in advance) or smuggled them out alive. Alive they could have been a figurehead for Buckingham's rebellion and he would have had total control of them, at least until they grew up making him de facto ruler.

Either way there was no way back for him. If Richard was upset at the killings there would be no way back for Buckingham. if brought out alive I have to assume they died subsequently - perhaps accidentally as they made their own escape bid or perhaps he made the mistake of leaving them in the same building with Bishop Morton or Margaret Beaufort and they took care of the matter, thereby disposing of people blocking Henry's path to the throne.

I am assuming that, alive or dead, they were removed from the Tower for the reasons Hamlet gives.
This largely explains the most surprising thing about the disappearances. That while there was no evidence of the Princes appearance after August 148- (and there were certainly rumours at the time of them being murdered which played a part in Richard's overthrow which he could have dispelled by producing them) Henry did not make any public attempt to cast the blame on Richard (though it was to his advantage to do so and not doing so cast suspicion on him). Even the word's of Tyler's alleged confession actively fail to mention who had hired him. Both of those who held legal responsibility for the safety of the occupants of the Tower (Richard until Bosworth, Henry afterwards) refused to blame anybody else. Buckingham, being the ally of both is the only one both might prefer not to implicate (although if Buckingham removed the children alive and they were killed by Henry's mother or Morton or only after Buckingham had raised the standard of rebellion in Henry's name, Henry has particular reason not to discuss the subject in his lifetime.

As with so many other political scandals including Polonius' murder, it is the cover up not the event that causes the problem for the leader. Even if he wasn't thinking of this case Shakespeare's understanding of the nature of politics stands out.